OLD DEED BLOCKS PLANNED VILLAGE LAND SALE

Robert LundinCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Only two weeks after the Village Board disclosed a plan to sell 6.6 acres of surplus village property in the Westchester Park subdivision, Village President Karen Bushy in effect has halted the deal by declaring that the sale must first be approved by voters in a referendum.

Her announcement came after some residents in the subdivision brought forth a deed for the property that indicated that it was a parcel of the original Sports Core package. The Sports Core was sold to the village in 1977 under a restrictive covenant that it would remain "open green areas, natural wooded areas, etc."

Village officials said they had operated under the assumption that a program, since abandoned, had been set up to buy houses and lots piecemeal in order to assimilate the subdivision, at 31st Street and York Road, into the Sports Core. Now, they want to cash in on the vacant property.

Steven Becker, speaking for a group of Westchester Park residents, said that the village had assumed that the sale of the parcels would be a fait accompli and that funds from the sale were earmarked to go toward balancing an internal accounting problem with the Sports Core fund.